Razorblade
by misprint
Summary: The deeper the roots of our being go down into the layers that lie below and beyond the confines of our ego yet at the same time feed and condition it, the heavier is our life with thought and the weightier is the soul of our flesh. - Chapter 3 is up.
1. One

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Chapter One

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"Wait!" She screamed. "Stop! Please!"

Through her blurred, mangled perception, she could make out the frame of a slight girl in a long, olive green coat, moving up the front stairs to her tenement. Knots of dark hair pushed from underneath her rainbow coloured toque, brushing against her thin neck, and twitching in the cool wind. She was confident, serene, slightly dreamy, as though her thoughts were somewhere else. She was real. With pleasures, and passions, and theories that would die with her. The tendons in her neck twitched, nearly unnoticeable to the naked eye. One shoulder creased backwards, and her neck slowly twisted, the arch of her ear came into view. The stretch of her cheekbone and the curve of a snubbed nose coloured themselves in against the dark night as her head turned to see who had screamed after her…

Lee blinked once, and she was gone.

-o-

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"History is that which has happened and that which goes on happening in time." Amadeus had a scratchy, soft voice. It rasped against Lee Tamagi's earlobes and made her feel supine, and weightless, as though her flesh would curl into deep grey fingers of smoke, and slowly twist themselves into nothingness. She closed her eyes, feeling the sick green glow of the subway lights press against the darkness. "But also it is the stratified record upon which we set our feet, the ground beneath us; and the deeper the roots of our being go down into the layers that lie below and beyond the confines of our ego, yet at the same time feed and condition it..." There was a slight pause, before he continued with the last line. "The heavier is our life with thought and the weightier is the soul of our flesh."

Lee opened her eyes to see his long fingers gently close the book shut, his dark eyes raise from it's pages to the three face surrounding him. Ursula and Felix, sitting tiredly on the floor in front of them, were watching him with a glazed stare, and Lee had her head pressed against the window, tilted slightly to focus on him. He weighted the moments with anticipation, before breathing, "Thomas Mann, 1875 to 1955."

"Where do you dig up this shit?" Felix wanted to know.

Ursula leaned over and backhanded his thigh with a disapproving scoff, as he let loose a few high pitched giggles. Lee couldn't help the slight twitch in her lips that brought her face into a small grin. Amadeus caught the grin, and let the beginnings of a frown play in the set of his eyebrows.

"Hey, fuck you." He slurred, leaning back in his seat and shoving the palm sized book into the pocket of his ragged bomber jacket. Felix let his snickers die off as Lee nudged him with the toe of her sneakers, leaving a dark muddy stain against the paleness of his jeans.

"Grow up, Lix." She said, shaking her head, her throat tight with laughter.

-o-

"History is that which has happened and that which goes on happening in time." Skittery murmured.

Swifty looked up from his post at the window, his gaze wrenching from the dark September night to his friend, who was sprawled out on his bunk, one leg hanging over the side and the other propped up against the post. He had a small, tattered looking book in his hands, and was struggling to read it, his eyes narrowed and his eyebrows knotted together in frustration. "But also it is the strat…the strat…stratifeed record 'pon which we set our feet…the ground beneath us…and the deeper the roots of our being go down into the layers that lie below and bee-yond the…the conf…confines…confines of our ego, yet at the same time feed and con…conditee…conditi…condition it... The heavier is our life with thought and the weight-yer is the soul of our flesh."

"Whazat mean?" Swifty asked, his brows tensing slightly as he ran the garbled words over in his mind. Skittery stared at the page for a moment longer, before snapping the book shut in one hand and letting his arms collapse onto his lanky frame.

"Got me." He admitted. "But it sure sounds pretty, don't it?"

"Yeah…" Swifty agreed, turning back and staring out the window. It was the kind of night that should have had a full moon shining down on the city like an ashen spotlight, and fingers of dry leaves scraping eerily across the cobblestones. But, of course, there were no trees around the lodging house, and the moon was only a fragment of light in the sky, hardly bright enough to illuminate the building across the street. Swifty sighed, and lay his head against the window, letting the frosty glass chill the hot skin around his forehead. He was feeling flushed, and restless, he wanted to get out of the crumbling building and out, into the open night air.

"Fancy a walk?" He asked, barely moving his head from the window. Skittery, who had opened the book again and was now on his front, struggling along with the fine print, glanced up at the window.

"I been walking all day, Swifts." He replied.

"Just a quick one?"

"Keep dreamin'."

Swifty grabbed the worn scarf that was hanging by the window, pulled it around his neck, and left the room.

-o-

The reflections of the four of them in the window seemed to sway back and forth in subtle motion as the subway shot through the tunnels that curved and twisted under New York City. Lee found herself studying her green tinged counterpart as it leaned to the silent music. The circles under her slanted, almond eyes seemed more pronounced, and the shadows on her face looked darker, and exhausted, but it could always just be a trick of the light. It gave her a discretely strange feeling to realize that her reflection looked more like it was from another world, or time, as opposed to New York City, 2004, shooting from 42nd street towards her home on the Lower East Side.

Lee felt a strange, slow wave in her stomach as the subway shuddered to a rasping halt, an abrasive screech filling the car and grinding against her eardrums. It made her back teeth hurt. Her eyelids flickered slightly at the noise as she pulled herself to a standing position, painfully sensitive to the rush of feelings that surged into her legs and back. She had been sitting without changing her position for the entire trip, and she was contrite to find that her back was slightly sore and tired. Amadeus looked like he was feeling the same as he stretched, his fists nearly brushing the roof of the car. Lee glanced over and measured him with her eyes. She was nearly up to his chest now, which either meant that she was growing, or that he was shrinking.

Feeling slightly better, she helped Ursula up from her place on the floor, and straightened out her coat. As the spruce female voice began announcing the name of their station, they pushed off, momentarily caught up in the propulsion of the New York crowd and thrust into the dingy subway station, walls thick with graffiti and floors covered in greying refuse.

"God. Beauty, ain't it?" Amadeus remarked, wrinkling his nose as the stench of urine and trash hit him with full force. Lee felt a small lurch in her stomach at the smell.

"Home sweet home." She assented.

They jogged shortly up the stairs, eager to get away from the greasy, colourless station and up into the night air. It wasn't much of a change, the smells and permeating nature of the city was trapped on it's lower sidewalks. But when they raised their faces, the faint glimmers of early stars were visible underneath the clouds of smog, and the faint breeze coming in off the Hudson River was enough to get them inhaling deeply, trying to catch faint whiffs of salt on the air.

"C'mon." Amadeus said, as Felix and Ursula turned down Seventh Avenue and began walking towards their house. "I'll walk you home."

-o-

Swifty threw the scarf around his neck, tilting his body to the side in order to have it swing around the entire way as he flew down the stairs. The lobby of the building was empty, making it seem even more rusted and stark than usual. The wallpaper was peeling, revealing the crumbling brick underneath, and any small gadget that Kloppman picked up with spare cash may have worked years ago, but were most certainly out of order at the present. The cracked grandfather clock in the corner was a good five hours fast, but since no one was certain of how to set it, they simply let it run, admiring the majestic look of it in the dingy room. There were springs poking from in between tears in the dingy sofa, hidden around a corner, and almost every chair in the room was creaky and set on a tilt. Swifty wrinkled his nose, half with distaste and half with affection, and pushed out the heavy front doors into the street.

The icy weather cut through his thin clothing and made him gasp, clenching his teeth and screwing his eyes up into squints. The frost had come unusually early that year, much to his and his friends dislike. It only meant a longer, harder winter. Not to mention less people on the street, and more in lofty, horse drawn carriages, the kind you had to run after if someone was interested in a headline. His spirits slightly lower than before, he turned and pushed the ill-fitted door closed, hearing it scrape against the stoop beneath it, before setting off at a lively pace, trying to trick himself into enjoying the way his eyes burned in the icy wind.

He found that he could only really think when he was alone and outside. The buildings were close and thick, but the sky was endless, and there was room on all sides of the sidewalk for him to take up. Even in large crowds, he felt a certainty of person knowing that his feet were connected to the ground, and the ground was connected to the world, one of which he was part of. Feeling slightly cheered, he cut a quick dance step that he had seen a lady and her beau do on the corner of Broadway and West 40th. His legs were tired, but a relentless energy was brewing inside of him. He felt that something good was going to happen tonight.

-o-

"Is it really necessary to walk me to my front doorstep?" Lee asked in an amused voice, as Amadeus doggedly turned down Christopher Street with her.

"Hey." He said, shrugging. They passed by a street lamp, and his profile was illuminated for a moment, as though he was outlined in luminance. "It's late at night. I don't want you getting roughed up."

"Good thing I have my big strong philosopher to protect me." She said, smiling slightly. Amadeus snorted and punched her arm as a retort. "'Sides." She continued, motioning around the street. "I've lived here since I was a baby. I think I know my way around. I won't get lost or roughed up."

"You just trying to get rid of me now?"

"What if I am?"

The two of them grinned, and shoved their hands into their pockets as a cool wind suddenly spilled through the streets and cut through their jackets with trenchant ease. Lee shivered and let out a groan, mangled by her teeth chattering. She didn't expect it to get this cold this early in the year. School had barely started, and they were already packing away their shorts and skirts, vainly hoping that the weather would get better before November, allowing them one more day to skip classes and head down to the beach. But the wintry winds and rains only came harder and harder.

Amadeus caught the tail end of her moan and glanced over, before tentatively reaching out and wrapping an arm around her shoulders, pulling her close to his side and rubbing his gloved hand up and down her arm, trying to massage some heat back into her veins. Grateful for the gruff concern, she snuggled closer to his side, able to feel the hard bones of his ribs through his thin jacket, listening to the nebulous sound of his heartbeat. The heat from his body soaked through her jacket to her own skin, almost as though his ribs were on her bare arm. It was a nice feeling.

She meant to stay that way for only a few steps, but the heat and a recklessly daring feeling in her stomach made her stay where she was, soaking up as much of his warmth as she could. She felt his fingers twitch around her shoulder, and she reluctantly stepped away, swearing that she could feel the fingers tighten before he let go with forced haste.

"Thanks." She said quickly.

"'Welcome," He replied in a voice that was raspier than usual. The two of them walked in silence, listening to the dry scrape of the leaves as they drifted from the bared branches, hearing them crunch underfoot and crackle behind them. She felt as though everything in the world was right, the thin sliver of the moon through the trees silver and radiant in the nebulous blue of the night, the stars like crushed diamonds scattered in a gown of velvet. Lee smiled, even though her fingers felt numb inside her jacket pockets and she was beginning to miss some of Amadeus's warmth. It was really a beautiful night.

"Nice stars, huh?" Amadeus muttered, almost sounding embarrassed.

"I'll say." She replied. "I've never seen them this clear before."

They were silent, feeling the strange tension between them melt away into a low buzz in both their minds. Their breath misted into silvery clouds before them, and drifted away on the wind, slowly twisting themselves into nothing.

-o-

This was the time when Swifty liked it best. He turned onto Christopher street, reveling inwardly at the look of the golden lights burning inside the tenements, the lone carriage making it's way down the cobblestone streets, the distant sounds of the waters of the Hudson River making kissing noises against the docks. It was times like this that he could waltz his way down the street, pretending that one of the crooked, ashen buildings was his own, and that he had a family waiting inside for him with hot soup and a place to sleep. A place to sleep that wasn't a tortuous, flimsy bunk that he sometimes had to share with the other boys. He whistled softly under his breath as he walked. Despite the cold wind, he felt almost warm. And loved.

There was a strange tingling underline to the icy weather, a strange warm heat with every cold gust of wind that nearly knocked him senseless. A magic in the air. He almost laughed to himself as he strolled down the sidewalk, hands shoved deep into his pockets, chin burrowed slightly into the worn scarf wound tightly 'round his neck. Someone was playing piano in one of the buildings, and the tune seemed to pick him up and carry him down the street.

__

In a certain city where the girls are cute and pretty, they have a raggy jazzy jazz time tune

When you hear that syncopated Jazz created melody you could dance all morning night and noon

He hummed the tune and added in a few phrases that he remembered, phrases collected from the distant corners of his memory. His heels clicked against the cobblestone in time to the tune, and he traced out the steps of an old dance move in his head.

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I can't get enough of it, please play it over again

I could dance forever to this refrain

To that 12th street, oh you 12th street rag...

He listened to the sounds of the carriage getting closer and felt like laughing for joy.

-o-

"Which of these fire traps is yours?" Amadeus asked, motioning to the old buildings with his chin. Lee rolled her eyes.

"They're not fire traps. They're just old," she protested. Her family had moved to Christopher street specifically because of the buildings, the tenements that looked as though they were right out of the twenties, one of the few streets in the city that you could turn onto and pretend you had just stepped back a few generations time. The buildings had been gutted and rewired, old pipes and mortar had been scraped away and replaced with genuine hardwood floors and tough, hard cement. But the outside was still as charming and crumbling as ever. Lee loved it.

Dancing down the street was the faint strains of music, but it was the type of music that was rarely heard in the city any more, the kind that was buried beneath the pounding basslines and scrape of the subways. It sounded like ragtime, and over the grind of the city, they could just barely make out the lyrics.

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I can't get enough of it, please play it over again

I could dance forever to this refrain

To that 12th street, oh you 12th street rag...

"I know this song," Lee remarked, as the music was hitched up a notch. Amadeus smiled, and Lee tried to tap her way through what looked like an old fashioned dance move. The two of them nodded in time to the music as they moved, both celebrating the unexpected magic in their own, quiet ways.

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Soloman in all his glory could have told another story were he but living here today...

With his thousand wives or more, a jazz band on some Egypt shore, he could dance the day and night away...

Lee sang along in a quiet voice, often hitting a sour note, and letting her voice bend and crack on the high ones. To her delight, Amadeus began to laugh, and then she began to laugh, and before either of them knew it, they couldn't stop.

-o-

Swifty let his eyes rest on the dark shape of the carriage as it came nearer and nearer, letting the darkness dissolve away to reveal the soft curves of the horses face and the dark, stained clothing of the driver, who was chewing on something and spitting onto the cement every once in a while. The carriage jerked and swayed from side to side on the rutted cobblestone, and the sound of a thousand glass clinks played in time to the music. Behind the man were crates and crates of empty milk bottles that people had left out on their stoops for him to collect.

And underneath the clinking of the milk bottles was a different sound. A gruffer, menacing sound.

Swifty could sense them before he saw them, really, a sharp tingling at the back of his neck and a sudden need to look away as the dark shapes and the red tips of cigarettes became apparent. There were three boys on the back of the carriage, hanging onto the beams and murmuring to one another in low, gruff voices. Swifty felt his heart pound at the root of his tongue, and casually turned his face away. It was at times like these that he felt conspicuous, and for the first time during his walk, he wished he hadn't left the lodging house.

The truth was that he knew what happened to boys who looked like him. Boys with slanted eyes and dark, thin hair. Boys with foreign sounding last names and thick, garbled accents. Praying that they hadn't caught a glimpse of his face, he pulled his scarf up over his chin more and dipped his hat low over his eyes. The last thing he needed was to face three boys on a quiet street where no one would come out to help him.

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I will tell you how they dance, that tantalizing 12th street rag.

-o-

"You realize you're going to make me look real pathetic if you walk me right up to my stoop," Lee finally protested when their laughter had died down. The moon had slipped halfway behind a thin cloud, making Amadeus' face darker and muted, making the thin twist of his lips eve more mysterious than usual. He sniggered briefly, a grin flashing through his foggy breath.

"Make you look pathetic?" He repeated. "No one's _watching,_ Lee."

Lee felt a tremor run up her spine at the way his voice seemed to grow dark at the edges on the last four words. They seemed to shimmer in the air, hanging in the air between them. Her breath caught in her throat. They turned and glanced at one another, and Lee quickly averted her eyes, but she could feel his own burning a pattern against her skin. She shook her head, shaking away the double meaning that had sprang to her mind through his words, shaking away that strange choking feeling at the sound of her name through his lips.

Amadeus inhaled, as though he was about to speak, but no words came. The music was louder, the scratchy sounding words echoing up and down the hollow street. Lee felt his fingers catch at her wrist, and she turned to look down. His hands were covered with dark gloves, but the fingers were cut out, and she could see his skin against her own.

She looked up at him, and felt that same burning feeling in the pit of her stomach.

Amadeus hesitantly raised his hand and touched her chin, drawing her face upwards. She was struck suddenly by his elaborated tallness, amazed at how small she felt. Her eyes dwelled on the thin curves of his lips, and before she could even speak, he had leaned down and, with an awkward moment of hesitation, pressed his mouth against hers. Her lips were cold and numb, and his felt like ice, but she could feel the pressure of his face against hers, and the tingling of his fingers on her flesh. She nearly jerked her head back with surprise, and felt herself trembling slightly with nerves and cold underneath his kiss. Vaguely, she wondered why heat hadn't enveloped the both of them, like it did in the romance novels that she and Ursula read in giggles. She was still cold, and her knees had seized up, making her legs shake uncontrollably.

The moment was over before she could even get a handle on it. He pulled back quickly, dropping his hand and letting it hover vaguely around her shoulderblades, before lowering it jerkily to his side. Lee opened her mouth to say something, but closed it immediately again, realizing that she must look as though she was gaping. Amadeus had just kissed her? The same Amadeus that read them philosophy on the subway and helped her write poetry on her bedroom walls?

"I'll...call you," he promised. His voice was dark and raspy, ragged around the edges, and a slight flush had risen in his cheeks. "Tonight. Tomorrow. After school. 'Kay?"

"School," Lee heard herself saying. "I have math, it's...stupid,"

"Yeah," he said, forcing a laugh. It sounded like he was choking. Lee couldn't help but look at him, the way his dark blue eyes burned through her own and caught her like a deer in the headlights. Before she could speak again, his fingers lingered briefly on her wrist and disappeared, were stuffed back into his pockets, his chin was lowered against his neck.

"See ya," he said, letting his eyes drill into hers once more before turning and moving away in those jerky, loping strides that she knew so well. She watched him go, barely realizing that he was.

"Yeah! See ya...later..." She finally yelled, watching the way he raised one hand in acknoweldgement, throwing the gesture over his shoulder.

She quickly turned away and ran towards her tenement. The music was growing stronger, so strong that it invaded her mind and made her ears pound raw.

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I will tell you how they dance, that tantalizing 12th street rag.

-o-

Swifty felt his insides melt slightly at the sounds of the carriage growing fainter in the distance, the mumbles of the boys laughter slowly fading into the music and the milk bottles. He let out a sigh of relief, watching the way his breath spun itself out in smoky music in the cool night air. Once again, he had managed to let his guard down. He wasn't a naive boy, he had tasted this city's reputation well enough, every punch to the mouth and every cigarette and every bite of the tough, hard bitten bread every morning. But every time a faint strain of music caught him, or he saw a couple dancing in one of the fancy dance halls around the city, he allowed himself to breathe for once. Not as a street kid, but as a real person.

He shook his head and adjusted the scarf so his mouth was against the night air once more, pressed the brim of his hat up so he could see the stars. It was a lovely night. Crisp and clean, just as he liked it. But perhaps he was straying too far from his home. Sighing and shaking his head, he made to turn down the next alley and make his way back to the lodging house.

But just before he stepped into the darkness of the lane, he turned and cast one last, longing look along the street he had just walked down. Some windows were still glowing a burnished gold in the darkness, but many of them had been extinguished, empty eye sockets in dead buildings. The street was crooked and narrow, like a village in a fairy tale, and somewhere off in the distance the music was still playing, as though not even the night could put an end to the quiet joy it inspired. Swifty felt his lips twist up into a slight smile, before he ducked his head low and moved into the alley, setting his sights for home.

__

I will tell you how they dance, that tantalizing 12th street rag.

-o-

Lee felt her head pound, felt a strange sinking sensation in her stomach. Her mind was reeling, her senses seemed to be rocketing back and forth in her head. She shook her head and shut her eyes tight before she stepped up onto the first step, her mouth tingling and raw from the feeling of someone else's lips against it. She turned and glanced down the street, but Amadeus was already almost gone, just a fuzzy, dark shape in the distance, now and then illuminated by a golden pool of light from a street lamp.

She smiled lightly, and felt a strange squirming sensation inside her stomach underneath the sinking. Now that the moment was over, she wished that it would come again, that she could relive it countless times, each time reveling in that sudden explosion of feeling. She turned back to the door and dug into her pocket for the key, when all of a sudden, she staggered backwards.

A blinding pain had struck itself across her forehead, slicing a gash on the inside of her skull and making her brain pound in agony. Her breath caught in her throat for the second time that night, and she let out a pained choke as she raised her fingers to her forehead and gently touched the skin. She had no time to consider what it was before it came again, making her grab vaguely at the railing in an effort to stay on her feet and not be thrown back on the preserved, cobblestone streets.

She shut her eyes tight and pressed the heel of her hand hard against her forehead, biting the inside of her lip so hard she could taste blood. The tingling in her mouth seemed to spread all across her body, and the sinking in her stomach began to move upwards to her lungs, her heart, her ribcage, her shoulders. She almost felt as though she was being sucked downwards, and wondered blearily if she was going to faint.

"Shit..." she cursed under her breath. She tried to open her eyes, wondering if she could call after Amadeus, but every time she so much as flickered her eyelids, the pain would come again in waves, crashing over her limp body as an ocean, making her bite the inside of her lip harder and harder and harder...she tried to open her mouth to call out, but any semblance of her voice was choked at the root of her tongue and left to rot on her lips.

A strange roaring filled her ears, not unlike the roaring of the city, blending somehow with the music that was growing even louder. She began to panic, her heart pounding harshly at the inside of her ribs like some kind of wild animal. She felt as though the ground was opening below her feet, and she was being sucked downwards, sinking through mud, through water, through some kind of strange, invisible force that had no name.

"What's happening to me?" She tried to scream. "What's going on?" If the words left her lips, she was unaware. No lights flickered on, no one responded, no one seemed to notice that the world was melting and grinding around her, that the moon was wavering in the sky and the street lamps were slowly fading and fading and fading while the music was playing louder and louder, pulsing in her as strong as a heartbeat...

All at once, there was a great snapping noise, and Lee felt her entire body convulse, her knees jerking up against her chest and her head curling down against them, arms loosely twisting up to her kneecaps. She was thrown, somehow, sucked downwards and hurtled through the mud, the water, the force. The surprised scream that tore up her throat was silenced in the dark night, didn't touch the renovated old tenements, didn't shatter the stillness of the neighbourhood. The stoop was empty, the moon still and serene, the streetlights as bright and golden as ever.

Lee was no longer standing before her doorway. The stoop was empty. And all around, the song seemed to echo in and out of the alleyways, the words reverberating in the air before getting lost in the cracks in the pavement, the gutters in the street.

__

Over you comes stealing, such a funny feeling, 'til you feel your senses reeling

Tantalizing hypnotizing mesmerizing strain

I can't get enough of it please play it over again,

I could dance forever to this refrain

To that 12th street, oh you 12th street rag!

-o-

Pity Lee's sudden love affair, fans of the original work!

Yes, this is another story revival. I'm screwed for new ideas, but the old ones will work just fine, thanks very much. I hope you enjoy.


	2. Two

****

Chapter Two

Swifty felt his insides melt slightly at the sounds of the carriage growing fainter in the distance, the mumbles of the boys laughter slowly fading into the music and the milk bottles. He let out a sigh of relief, watching the way his breath spun itself out in smoky music in the cool night air. Once again, he had managed to let his guard down. He wasn't a naive boy; he had tasted this city's reputation well enough, every punch to the mouth and every cigarette and every bite of the tough, hard-bitten bread every morning. But every time a faint strain of music caught him, or he saw a couple dancing in one of the fancy dance halls around the city, he allowed himself to breathe for once. Not as a street kid, but as a real person.

He shook his head and adjusted the scarf so his mouth was against the night air once more, pressed the brim of his hat up so he could see the stars. It was a lovely night. Crisp and clean, just as he liked it. But perhaps he was straying too far from his home. Sighing and shaking his head, he made to turn down the next alley and make his way back to the lodging house.

But just before he stepped into the darkness of the lane, he turned and cast one last, longing look along the street he had just walked down. Some windows were still glowing a burnished gold in the darkness, but many of them had been extinguished, empty eye sockets in dead buildings. The street was crooked and narrow, like a village in a fairy tale, and somewhere off in the distance the music was still playing, as though not even the night could put an end to the quiet joy it inspired. Swifty felt his lips twist up into a slight smile, before he ducked his head low and moved into the alley, setting his sights for home.

__

I will tell you how they dance, that tantalizing 12th street rag.

But he was stopped cold in his tracks by the sound of a light, almost stifled whimper that echoed down the street.

He paused, brows tightening above the sharp bridge of his nose, head twisting backwards. The cry had been so light, so low, he wasn't even sure if he had imagined it or not. He waited a few more moments, listening intently, and heard it again, along with the low scuffs of shoes and a gruff laugh that made his stomach tighten in his body.

He turned and gazed down the alleyway, focusing his sights on the road on the other end. If he ran, now, really quickly, he could get out of the area before any of the trouble started. He was a fast runner. They didn't call him "Swifty" for nothing, and that was a fact. He could be out of the alley in a few strides, down the street in a few more, and on his way to the lodging house before you could blink. And yet...he heard the sound again, the sound of a girl...it was definitely a girl.

"Well, well, well..." A crude voice murmured. "What have we here?" The sound of the tone was familiar. Swifty couldn't be certain, but it sounded like one of the boys on the back of the carriage, the boy who had laughed as they passed. He looked down to the opposite street and tried to make his feet move, but he couldn't seem to make up his own mind. And then, after a moment of hesitation, he cursed his morals to hell and moved towards the mouth of the alley.

He didn't know why he was doing this. New York wasn't the kind of city that looked kindly upon the Good Samaritan. Chances were that if he tried to interfere, he'd probably get his face ground down in the cobblestone as hard as that girl's. But he couldn't help this reckless sense of courage, this sudden obligatory feeling. Something he had to do.

He paused at the mouth of the alley, and waited. There was no sense running right into the thing right off the bat. Maybe the boys would just tease her a while and get going, or maybe she'd drive them off somehow. He waited, pressed against the brick wall behind him, breath bated in his throat. To his chagrin, he noticed that his palms were already slick with a light sweat. He looked longingly once more to the opposite end of the alley. Maybe he should just head back to the lodging house before the affair turned nasty...he didn't owe anybody anything...

"C'mon, ya gook," one of the boys was laughing. "Just give us a look. Ain't never seen no _girl_ wearin' slacks before..."

"Get your hands off me!" The girl interrupted, a faint scuffle following her words. "I said get off!"

Swifty shut his eyes tight. They weren't just going to go away. He could hear another faint scraping sound, and then a sharp snap, so abrupt it made him wince. Skin on skin? No...something snapping...thread...

"Leave me alone!" The girl's voice was shriller, edged with panic. "Get away from me!"

Taking one more deep breath, Swifty bit the inside of his lip hard and stepped out from the mouth of the alley.

The first thing that met his eyes was the girl.

She had her back to him, facing the three thugs in front of her, visibly trembling in the pale moonlight. Swifty glanced her over quickly, and felt his brows furrow over top of his nose once again, felt his mind curl slightly in confusion. He couldn't see past the long, putrid green colored coat she wore, but what he could see was puzzling enough. Peeking out from the hem was not the heavy serge skirt that he always saw on women around this area, but _slacks._ Just as the boys had said. Stretched around her head was the strangest headgear he had ever seen in his life, almost as though someone had spread a large sock over her hair, which was alarmingly short, bristling out from under the hat in short, spiky strands. But perhaps what was most alarming was the way her jacket was hanging off one shoulder, exposing her skin in the darkness of the night, more skin than he had ever seen a decent garment dare show. There were only two straps to the top she was wearing, one of which was hanging precariously off the arc of her shoulder. She was desperately clutching at the front of her jacket and trying to shift the strap up, but Swifty couldn't see why. It wasn't as though it would have made her any more decent.

He pushed the thought from his head, and let his eyes travel up to the three thugs. Not for the first time, he wished he had just left well enough alone. Each one looked more than capable of pounding him into a grease spot on the sidewalk, not to mention that they all looked mean enough to do it. Their heavyset features were lit up from the glow of the cigarettes that were clamped in their mouths, and he could see the way their eyes were trained intensely on the girl. One of them was closer to her than the others, his hand was reaching out to grab at her coat once more...

"Hey," Swifty said.

His voice sounded shamefully light and uncertain in the wake of the three gruff boys before him, and the girl's shocking unseemliness. The eyes of the thugs all shifted to him, the slight shadow in the background, barely able to hold his ground. He cleared his throat. "Leave her alone."

The girl whirled around, startled, and as her eyes landed on his own, he felt a strange shot of heat run through his body, as a beam of _something _seemed to shoot between them and fuse their gaze's together. The girl's eyes crumpled, and her brows knotted together, lips parting slightly as though she was about to speak. But instead, she shut her mouth hastily, and clutched her crooked coat tighter against her chest, her free hand working furiously to pull it up to her neck once more. Near the collar, there was a button missing, the snapped green threads hanging uselessly down her front.

"What's this?" One of the boys was saying, after the three of them recovered from the initial surprise. "We got someone steppin' in to play the hero?"

Swifty tore his eyes away from the girl and back up to the thugs, one of who was cracking his knuckles threateningly, moving in closer, eyes glinting malevolently. He glanced from the girl, back up to Swifty, and raised one eyebrow.

"Who's she that she's so important to ya, huh?" He questioned, moving in another pace closer. The girl worriedly turned around again, pale fingers clutching the space where the button used to be, holding her coat closed against them. As she moved back, Swifty could feel her arm brush his own, could feel the way she was shaking.

"She's just a girl," Swifty tried to say, but he could feel the words getting caught in his throat. If it weren't for the fact that she was right in front of him, trembling against his skin, he'd turn and run and run and run until he collapsed in front of the lodging house in a sweating, panting heap.

"What's that?" The boy asked. "Speak up, jap."

"She's..." Swifty cleared his throat. "Just leave her alone, okay?"

"Not until she shows us what she's got on underneath that coat a' hers," one of the boys added in, flicking his cigarette away, the red tip arching in a blazing red trail to the gutter. "That's what we wants, ain't it fellas?" The other two boys chuckled gruffly. The girl let out a faint choking sound, and took two stumbling steps backwards, until she was behind Swifty completely. Swifty wanted to turn around and tell her to make a run for it, but he didn't want to turn his back on the three boys for even a second.

"Beat it," he told them all, hoping that he sounded a lot stronger than he felt. "Jus' get the hell off this street, a'right?"

He swallowed harshly as the words hung in the air, and then dissolved into nothingness. The three boys turned and shared glances with one another, smiles cracking their sore lips open and harsh amusement filling their eyes. Swifty felt his breath catch in his throat. This wasn't going the way he had planned, but then again, he hadn't really had a plan. He almost wished that he had left the girl to get out of the situation herself, but it was so much more difficult thinking that when the very girl was right behind him, her breath breaking against the back of his neck, her stifled whimpers directly behind his ear. He furrowed his brows, and turned his head slightly towards her, as though to speak, but before he could get the words out, one of the boys had lunged forwards and shoved him square in the chest.

He lost his balance, his arms swinging out forwards and his feet stumbling against the cobblestone. He could feel his shoulder knock against the girl as he went down, making her choke back a yell, could feel the harsh slam of the cement against his flesh as he went down on one arm and rolled onto his back, trying to keep his head off the cobblestone. The stars swung in a dizzying arc above him, and he shut his eyes quickly, feeling his whole body throb in pain.

He could hear someone muttering a curse word above him, and after a second's pause, the sound of footsteps tearing off down the street, the feeling of felt brush quickly against his forehead. The jacket. Without thinking, he twisted over and turned to see the girl running, running faster than he knew a girl could even run, the jacket flapping out behind her in the darkness. He watched her go, eyes trained dully on the back of her shoes, realizing that she was running just as fast as him. He didn't know anyone who could run as fast as he did.

He felt a foot press squarely down against his chest, and before he knew it, his back slammed against the pavement, the back of his head tapping the cobblestone lightly, making him feel dizzy. When he opened his eyes, he could see the dark shadows of one of the goon's faces as he leaned over him, pressing his weight down on his rib cage, making him choke and splutter.

"You're girlfriend's gone," he told him. "You gonna try to chase after her?"

-o-

Lee lived in New York City. She had lived there all her life. When she was in grade seven, she had been followed home by a gang of tough looking boys that smoked cigarettes and whispered to one another in words that she couldn't make out. When she was in grade eight, she had watched some of her friends fall into the vices of drugs and alcohol. When she was in grade nine, a girl in her class had been mugged and killed a few weeks after her fourteenth birthday. Lee was no stranger to darkness, corruption, she was no stranger to fear.

But she could honestly say that she had never been more frightened in her life.

The blinding pain, the sucking feeling beneath her feet, the way she had been thrown across what seemed like an infinite void, the feeling of her shoes slamming against the cobblestone and her body curving over as she nearly collapsed. When she had straightened, her tenement was before her, as crumbling and familiar as it had ever been. But something was different. In the few seconds she'd had to let her eyes dart frantically up and down the street, the few seconds she had to press her hands to her head and catch her balance, she could feel that something was wrong. The distant, underground rumble of the subways was missing, the air was heavy with ash instead of gasoline, and the street seemed darker, as though every light in New York city had flickered and left her alone. Underneath the strains of the music that had faded out of existence, she could hear a strange, thick clopping sound that reminded her of old movies and parades...

There was a _carriage_ _on the street behind her._

She ran now, dizziness threatening to make her collapse, her breath clawing in and out of her lungs and her heart beating at the inside of her chest like a trapped, frenzied creature. Every neuron in her body burned and tingled under her skin, and she longed to collapse on one of the stoops, but her fear forced her only to run faster, until she was nearly crying from exhaustion and confusion, until the three thugs and that strange boy were naught but dark shapes in the distance.

She fell to her knees in the middle of the street, her palms smashing against the hard cobblestone.

__

Who were those boys? She hadn't taken the time to study them in the darkness, the way they had been studying her had nearly paralyzed her. And when he had snapped the button off the coat...she felt a tremor of fear shake at her spine, and she shut her eyes tight, breath still ripping from her body with fear. But the way they had been dressed...suspenders and baggy shirts. No jeans, no khakis, no sweatpants...strange, straight legged pants that would have been dress pants had they not been so patched and ragged. Caps that she had seen her grandfather wear sometimes, one of them was wearing a bowler hat, like the ones they had worn in that musical about the thirties...

A strange, irrational fear began to beat deep in her body, faster than her heart, sicker than blood through her veins. Feeling her pulse run faster, she jerked her head up and studied the street. At first, it seemed almost the same, but a sick realization washed over her as she caught the shape of the street lamps, saw the way the windows burned a oily gold as opposed to a harsh electric blue, saw that there were potholes and cracks in the sidewalk that had never been there before...

She staggered to her feet and spun on the spot, tripping over her own shoes and the unfamiliar rough street beneath her feet. Where was all the litter? Where were the numerous posters and bills that had been slicked up on the lamp posts? And the lamp posts! They were ornate, the tops straight and peaked, with candles burning through the glass panes! Why was there no canned laughter from a late night sitcom floating through the windows, and how come she could no longer hear the grind of far off traffic, the pulse of late night rock music from some kind of party?

She began to run again, not as fast as she had run from the thugs, but a jerky, stumbling run that nearly sent her toppling over more than once. She could barely keep her feet on the ground, as her eyes darted from one side of the street to the other. A few years ago, they had torn down some of the tenements that could barely stand, and had rebuilt period looking clapboard houses. Charming things, with vegetable gardens out front and gable windows.

They were gone.

The realization staggered her, making her press her back up against a tenement, heart pounding in fear. They were gone. The tenements were there, the ones they had torn down, except these one's weren't decrepit and frail. They were sturdy looking and new, the bricks still relatively unstained from soot, the doors and windows clean and unspoiled. A strange dizziness overtook her, seeing the houses that she knew so well suddenly lost. This couldn't be Christopher street, that's all. She had turned onto a different street, one where they had preserved the heritage look...built new lamp posts...laid down cobblestone...

But it had been her house! The stoop that Amadeus had dropped her off was her own. He wouldn't have dropped her off if it had been someone else's, he knew where she lived.

Amadeus! Her head whipped around the direction she had come, as though expecting to see him loping towards her with that old familiar walk, smiling in his crooked way, his book of quotes in his long, tapering fingers. But of course, there was nothing, just a stretch of blank, unfamiliar street and the four figures in the distance. Was it possible that Amadeus was still here? Could she chase after him, catch him before he reached his own house? No...she would have to pass the thugs again.

She revolved slowly on the spot, taking in the street, feeling her heart pound faster and faster in her throat. She was choking, not on the dust and ash in the air, but a slow, sick discovery that didn't even make sense. She must have turned onto some other street when she was running. That carriage must have been on it's way to some kind of turn of the century mock-up. It was a bad head-ache, bad case of the cramps, she was just dizzy from her first real kiss...

But the boys had been real. The houses were gone. The tenements were in front of her, solid and all too vivid to be dismissed as a mere hallucination. This was Christopher street. But it wasn't the Christopher street that she knew.

There was a thick crunching sound in the distance, and a sudden scream rent through the night, echoing down the street and making her gasp, pressing her fingers up against her mouth in horror. Her head whipped back the direction that she had run from, and in an instant, she knew that it was the four boys that she had left behind. She could see nothing, the darkness was thick and consuming, but the sound seemed to speak for itself. She waited for a multitude of lights to flick on...real electric lights...waited for people to hear the screams and call up the police, waited for perfectly normal looking people in perfectly normal looking clothes to peer out their windows to see what the commotion was about. But there was nothing. The horrible sounds were followed by a brief scuffling noise, and then another scream, quieter this time, but too horrible to ever be forgotten. It dwindled in the air for a moment, before someone shouted something, and a brief clanging noise echoed down the road.

The scream was cut off. Silenced. As though it had never been.

Lee didn't realize how hard she was biting down on her fingers until she tasted the thick flavor of blood on her tongue. In horror, she pulled her fingers away and saw the deep red crescents slashed against the pads. It made her feel sick. Silently, she moved into the nearest alley, and crouched behind a garbage can, feeling her throat tighten. There was no bright, flourescent graffiti, no large green trash dumpsters, no empty cases of KFC or cans of beer. There were crates, and bundles of paper, dark shards of broken glass, and a few empty bottles that were rectangular and old fashioned, the kind you'd see in a vaudeville play. This wasn't the Christopher street she knew. There was something deadly wrong.

-o-

How long she waited in the alley, she did not know. The thoughts that were sliding around the edges of her mind were twisted and entirely unbelievable. Time travel. Time didn't have any concept any more, she could have been waiting weeks in the alley without a thought. But she waited. She waited until the three boys passed, their silhouettes outlined by the red glare of their cigarettes, muttering to one another. She didn't even try to hear what they were saying. She thought, sickly, that she didn't want to know.

She waited until she could hear the soft scraping sounds of their footsteps no longer, and pushed herself to her feet. Before she could think about what she was doing, she crept out of the alley and turned back onto Christopher street. She felt the sick swing of dizziness in her stomach when she saw that the new houses were gone, shook the feeling off, and turned back the direction from where she came.

Her suspicions proved correct. She could just make out, in the dim light cast from the old fashioned lamps, that there was a crumpled form on the sidewalk, not moving, just lying there staring up at the stars. She took a deep, shuddering breath, her insides tight with fear and a queasy feeling of culpability. She didn't know where she was. And, despite her disbelief at the concept, she didn't know _when_ she was. And so far, the only person who had treated her with something close to care was the boy who had stepped out and saved her from the three thugs.

And she had run from him.

She hesitated before beginning the long walk to where he lay, wondering if he would be angry at her for leaving him all on his own like that. Her insides squirmed hot with guilt, and feeling a sudden outburst of panic, she began to ran, her shaky legs barely supporting her. The sudden realization that she was completely alone seemed to take her by frightening force, and she felt almost that if she didn't get to this boy in good time, he would disappear before her eyes, just like those houses, like the street...

She had to find out where she was. And he was her best bet.

She ran until she could make out his shape against the cobblestone, until she was ten feet away, five feet away, one foot away...

She skidded to a halt overtop of him and dropped to her knees, eyes running over the length of his body. There was a thick bruise developing on his temple, peering out from under his thin black hair, swollen and putrid against the paleness of his skin. His shirt was crooked, as though he had been wrenched upwards by the collar, and there was a thick tear along the hem, which was jaggedly torn away from the waistline of his pants. His scarf had been flung aside against her tenement. And his legs...his right leg...

Lee felt a thick sensation swarm up in her throat, and she had to press her fist against her lips and shut her eyes tight to keep from vomiting. It was mangled. Completely mangled. From mid-thigh down, it's shape was jagged and cracked, blood pooling underneath it and staining the rough material of his pants. The thick smell of torn flesh and gore seemed to flood her senses, and she swallowed with difficulty, quickly averting her eyes to his face again and letting out a shuddery breath. She had seen a lot worse in action movies of her time, but nothing compared to seeing it first hand...knowing that she could have prevented it...

"Please..." she whispered, her voice on the edge of sobs. "Please wake up..."

Hesitantly, she reached out and brushed a fingertip against his face, starting when she saw the dark smear of blood that she left. In horror, she brought her fingers up to her face and examined them, studying the thick gashes where her teeth had bitten into and broken the skin. She didn't know what she wanted to do more, cry or throw up, but she forced herself to calmness, to placidity.

__

If anything else, she told herself. _You have to get a grip. Don't panic. Just don't panic._

Moving with a new sense of purpose, she reached over and shook him gently, hearing the way his body scuffed against the pavement. She knew he was alive, she could see his chest rising and falling quite normally under his old fashioned shirt, and felt his flesh warm against her own bloody fingers. So he was just knocked out...she glanced once more at the bruise on his temple, and shuffled closer.

"Wake up..." she whispered. "Wake up, please..."

Swifty's mind felt as though it was being brought up from some dark, dank underground place...from the depths of the Hudson river...the muddy waters slowly spilling off of it in waterfalls, the light of day filtering down and making him cringe...

__

Wake up...please, please _be okay..._

Okay? He was perfectly fine. He tried to open his lips to say something, but no words came, no feeling, no sensations to prove that he was still a part of his body.

Lee studied his face carefully. His eyes were twitching, and his lips tightened slightly, as though he was trying to speak. Feeling slight glimmerings of hope, she shook him slightly harder, watching his face intently.

Swifty could feel his shoulders jerking up and down as he slowly returned to his body, could feel a small, thin pair of hands clenched tight over his shoulder blades, could feel the cool breath of someone against his skin...a thick burning sensation seemed to tear up and down his body, making him twitch, making his eyes clamp tighter and tighter as it grew more and more intense...

A burst of pain ripped up his body as his eyes shot open and he parted his lips to moan.

Lee could have died with joy as his eyes opened, his pupils contracting harshly and his breath coming out in a groan of agony. He was awake, awake and gasping for breath on the cobblestone beneath her. Hastily, she smoothed his hair back from his face and pressed her hands lightly against his forehead.

"Shh..." she whispered, her own voice trembling with fright and exhileration. "Don't worry..."

"What's happening?" Swifty managed, through clenched teeth. "Who are you?"

"Listen, you need to tell me what year it is," Lee said, as softly as she could, trying not to grab at the boy and shake him until he choked out the answer. "Please, it's important..."

"The year?" The boy asked in bewilderment. Lee stared down at him in dismay. His eyes were blank and wandering, alighting on his surroundings with the puzzled, curious gaze of a lost stranger. Lee felt her heart sag with disappointment.

"Concentrate!" She pleaded. "The year! What year is it?"

"The year?" The boy repeated. Lee nodded, grinding her back teeth together, eyes trained on his face until they burned. He finally looked at her, catching her gaze in his own. The bruise was darkening on his temple, making him look pale underneath it's thick, black fingers. He opened his mouth to speak, but was cut off as his breath caught in his throat and his eyes clamped shut.

"My leg!" He gasped through his tight jaw. "It...god, it _hurts..._"

Lee didn't even risk glancing down at his mutilated limb, and in a burning way, didn't want him to either. Hastily, she reached up and began to undo the buttons of her coat, trembling as an icy wind swept down the street and caught at the flaps.

"Just don't move," she told him, feeling as though she wanted to cry. "You're hurt."

"It hurts..." Swifty repeated, his eyes still shut tight, as though he too was reluctant to see what condition he was in. Lee quickly shimmied out of her coat and draped it over him, goose bumps immediately bunching up over her shoulders and forearms, her jaw clenching in the coldness of the night. All she wore underneath was a tank top and a pair of jeans with too many holes in them to provide her any sort of warmth.

"I have to go home," Swifty was saying. "I have to get back..."

"Where do you live?" Lee asked harshly, bending over him so they were almost nose to nose. Swifty let his eyes flicker open, and he regarded her in a blurry, vague way, as though he could barely see her.

"The lodging house," he croaked.

"What's the address?" Lee pressed, hoping he'd at least be able to give her that information. She didn't want to sit here on the cold street and try to talk him out of his delirium, it would get her no wehre. She needed to find someone with a clear head on his or her shoulders, someone who could listen to her and...help her back? Back where? _Where was she?_

Swifty whispered a street name, his eyes fluttering open and shut, like a doll that you could tip back and make sleep. Lee ran over a mental map of her city in her mind, and instantly knew where he was talking about. And she realized, with a sigh of relief, that it wasn't that far from Christopher street at all. The idea of it being so close made her feel slightly more at ease, perhaps she wasn't as lost as she thought she was. Maybe all of this was just the works of her over active imagination. And yet...

Hoping against hope that what she thought to herself was the farthest from the truth, she slid her arms under the boys back.

"I'm going to help you stand," she whispered to him. "I'm taking you home,"

-o-

****

Keza - Me? Big dose of angst? Blame Thomas Mann, my friend, he must have had his panties on too tight when he wrote that. Ha! Violence love. Don't worry. You're not the only one. I LOVE AWKWARD MOMENTS. And I hate flawless romance. Yay for realism! Aw, Kez, that's one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me, about my writing growing with me. Thanks so much!

****

Mondie - SHE LIVES! Charlotte Bronte? I DON'T KNOW WHO THAT IS! BUT IT'S STILL AWESOME! Oh man, it's just like old times. -reminisces- Check this shit out. Not even a month later, and I'm posting. For the same story. Impossible, you say? Nothing is impossible. Thanks for the review, hon. Here's yer knife!


	3. Three

**Chapter Three**

When Jack opened the lodging house door, he couldn't have seen a more peculiar thing on the stoop.

He himself had been roused from the midst of the festivities that night, which were chiefly centered around Racetrack's lurid description of a scene that had taken place between himself and a whore he had met the previous night. Just as he had begun to go into detail, they all heard the sound of someone staggering heavily up the steps, and a frantic pounding at the door. Jack himself still had the faint curves of a half cocked grin lingering around his lips, and a spark of curiosity in his eye as he swung the door open. But both fell the moment he saw the girl.

He had never seen a girl like her before in his life. She was staring up at him with a gaze that could have sold a hundred papers, helpless and lost, her skin glazed with a thin layer of sweat, her chest rising and falling in exertion. Her lips were parted, and she was gasping for breath as though she had just come up from underwater, and her eyes were quite red. But it was the clothing that had made him take a second glance. For one, she was wearing slacks. And not just any slacks, but the rough, raw material that they used in the mines and factories, the stuff that lasted forever. Hers were torn and tailored in the most peculiar way, designed to fit snugly along her thighs and bell out at the calves. They were laughable, almost. But the shirt was what made his breath catch in his throat. He had never seen a shirt that fit the figure of a girl so snugly, the material thin enough to rip just by touching. It was sleeveless, held up by two thin straps that ran over her shoulders, one of which was nearly half over the arc of her shoulder, revealing a darker strap that disappeared into the shirt. If it could have been called a shirt.

Lee tore her eyes away from figure in the doorway and glanced down to the stoop where she had left the injured boy, tucking the jacket firmly around him and confirming that this was indeed the lodging house that he lived in. She was unsure of what to say, unsure of how to introduce what had happened to a stranger.

She turned back around, and couldn't help but notice how strong he seemed under the button down he was wearing, how broad his shoulders were and how firmly a bandana was knotted around his neck. He looked capable. Immovably and satisfyingly capable to take the boy off of her hands and find an answer to her question somehow. Help her...was there any way to help her? The journey to the lodging house hadn't been a peaceful one, the more corners she turned down, nearly dragging Swifty in her wake as he stumbled, forced to hop on one leg, the more she realized that wherever she was, it was not in her century. The corner store a few blocks away from her house was eerily gone, replaced by a dark looking building with glowing windows and a jagged fire escape slicing up the front. The cars lining the streets, the bill boards that jutted up among the buildings and glowed in the night, the graffiti mural that had been painted over and redone at least twenty times...all gone. It was dizzying, it was sickening, the most frightening thing she had ever known.

She felt a flush rise against her cheeks as she saw the way the tall boy was studying her body intently. His eyes were wide, and his cheeks were turning a slow pink, as though it was indecent for her to be dressed the way she was. And she realized, sickly, that he had probably never seen a girl dressed like this before in his life, if it was the time she thought it was.

_Don't think about that,_ she thought frantically. _Just...just think..._She hesitated to catch her breath. Helping the injured boy back to the lodging house hadn't been an easy feat, and her whole body was trembling from exertion and panic.

"Swifty," she said, managing to choke out the word between her desperate gasps for breath. "Swifty's hurt."

She didn't know if the name would mean anything to the boy. It certainly didn't mean anything to her, but it was the only thing that the injured boy had given her. In the light of the healthy, sensible looking teenager standing in front of her, the name sounded even more ridiculous on her lips. She almost expected him to raise his eyebrows, and slam the door in her face. But to her surprise, his brows furrowed, and he glanced around the darkened street.

"Where is he?" He asked shortly.

Almost crying with relief, Lee pointed to her right, where she had left him leaning against the stoop. Jack leaned forwards slightly, still not leaving his post square in the center of the doorframe, and peered down through the shadows.

"Who's there, Jacky boy?" Someone called out from inside the house. Lee could smell the thick scent of cigarettes drift out through the hallway, and the warmth that seemed to vibrate from the building itself. It felt almost comforting against her cold skin, comforting in a city that wasn't her own.

"Is it Sarah?" Someone gave a loud cat call, and a chorus of laughter erupted. "Is it yer lady comin' to pay you a visit?"

But Jack wasn't laughing. He leaned back inside the doorway, tilting his head towards a group of people that were out of Lee's range of vision.

"Swifty's hoit," he said, his voice raised slightly, his facial expression intense. Already, he practically shone with leadership. Lee wanted just to fall forwards against him, hit his broad, warm looking chest and disappear. Let him take this burden off her shoulders. Let him lead her home.

"Swifty?" An outbreak of murmurs burst out, spreading through the lobby like wildfire, and there was a quick scuffling. Before Lee knew it, Jack had moved past her and vaulted over the small railing, landing squarely by Swifty and crouching down next to him, hands already moving to undo the buttons on the coat and check how much damage had been done to his room mate. Lee moved back, relieved, propping herself up against the railing and pressing a hand against her ribs, trying to massage the sharp stitch that had split open her sides. A few boys appeared, all of them looking as though they were actors in a silent film, dressed up like Charlie Chaplin and that boy in "The Tramp", all of them casting sidelong glances at her, the small figure leaning hard against the railing. And almost all of them looked back a second time.

Lee felt her face burn, and she crossed her thin arms across her chest, almost feeling as embarrassed as they looked. If this was some kind of dream, why couldn't she have dreamt up some suitable clothing so not every boy who passed would look at her as though she was in less than undergarments?

"Boots, tell Snipes to get some of that whiskey he's been hiding," Jack was saying abruptly, talking to each of the boys in turn. "We'll need it. Skits, go find those bandages that Kloppman bought last month. Hey Jake, send the kids upstairs. Tell 'um to get the hell to sleep. You three, c'mere, help me carry 'im..."

Swifty was thinking clearer than he had ever since he had hit the pavement. He could sense dark figures moving around in front of him, and for a few seconds, Jack's strong, dark face had appeared before him, focused and intent. He tried to move his lips to say something, but his mind was still moving faster than his body, and every inch of his flesh seemed to throb with pain and sweltering agony. Especially his right leg. He could feel the tears and jaggedness of his limb, and even though he had ample opportunity, he had not yet looked down at it. He didn't want to see what had happened to him. What the three of them had done to him.

"Swifty? You okay?" Jack was speaking softly to him. Darker shapes were assembling themselves around him, the girl's green jacket was being unbuttoned. Swifty managed to nod, the very gesture making his head ache sharply, and licked his dry lips. "Good," Jack said brusquely. "We're gonna carry you inside, a'right?"

"Jesus _Christ..._" he heard someone mutter. It sounded distinctly like Racetrack. "Jack, c'mere...look at his _leg..._"

Jack seemed to disappear into the far darkness. Swifty shut his eyes tight, unwilling to share the sight that all of them seemed to be exclaiming over. His leg was hurting even more than before, even more than when the pain had knocked him straight out. He could hear light, harsh breathing behind him, and thought once more of the girl, but the thought was out of his mind immediately as a sharper ache seemed to slice up his leg and through his body. His eyes tightened and he let out a moan of pain.

"Keep yer chin up, pal," Jack was saying in a tight voice. "We gotta get you inside. Your leg's broken." Swifty could feel the pair of hands that had slid underneath his right leg tighten slightly, lifting the limb off the ground. He tucked his bottom lip in between his teeth and bit hard, trying to silence the howls of pain that were breaking up and down his throat like waves.

"Ready?" Someone murmured. "One...two..._three..._"

Lee watched, biting her lip hard, as the four boys lifted Swifty off the ground and began to move him towards the doorway. His face had gone pale, paler than it was before, and he was biting his lip so hard, dark pools of blood were beginning to stain his teeth. Lee could see why. His leg was twitching, jagged and broken, and try as hard as they may, the boys could find no gentler way of transporting him to the lighter insides of the building. Lee stepped back to let them pass, wishing she could reach out and dream away the pain. It was a dream. It had to be some sort of dream. Couldn't she stop this? She watched as Jack let one of the other boys relieve him, taking Swifty's arm and leading him gently over the doorstep.

Hastily, she swept down and grabbed her jacket off the cold cobblestone, trying with all her might to ignore the dark bloodstains near the hem where Swifty's leg had rested. She folded it quickly and slung it over her arm, before jogging up the stairs and moving to step through the doorway with the rest of the boys. But she found that her way was being blocked.

"Thanks and all," she heard Jack say. "But women ain't allowed in the lodgin' house."

She found herself staring not at the warm insides of the building, but at the strong boy's chest right before her eyes. Blocking her way. She felt the world grind to a standstill at his words, felt her carefully constructed demeanor crumble at the refusal. She raised her stare to his, eyes wide with shock, only to meet his firm, resolute gaze, edged with a slight, sharp suspicion. Lee felt herself begin to panic.

"You...but...you have to let me in! I'm...I'm lost..."

"There's a shelter on Delancey that takes in kids under eighteen. You could pass." Jack said, before moving to close the door. She could see the boys ushering Swifty into the next room, moving him as carefully as possible. She caught a glimpse of his face, saw the way it was tight with pain, and felt an intense rush of protectiveness, of longing.

"I brought him here!" She protested loudly, letting her hand come out and press against the door, trying in vain to keep it open. "I dragged him four blocks! You gotta let me in!"

"I can't..." Jack returned, but a slight croak from the next room stopped him. Lee bit down the swells of panic rising in her chest and strained her ears.

"Let her come in, Cowboy," the voice murmured. It was Swifty. The boys had stopped moving, they were standing still and glancing back at Jack, waiting for orders. "It's dark out there, let her...let her come in..."

Jack glanced once from Swifty and back to Lee, his eyes scrunching slightly as he thought. He looked once more at the clothing she wore, and the way the skin of her torso was so shamefully exposed. Lee felt her insides harden slightly, and defiantly crossed her arms over her chest for a second time that night. Finally, with a sigh, Jack glanced up and down the street once more, before pulling the door open, letting the light pouring from the building cast her shadow back onto the street.

"It's the keepers day off," he told her brusquely. "You can come in. Butcha can't stay past midnight or nothin'."

Lee let out a thankful sigh. The sheer relief of not being cast out onto an unfamiliar, dirty street with only her jacket to protect her seemed to dull the eventual pain of finding somewhere to sleep for the night. But a lingering shock in her mind seemed certain that she wouldn't need to worry about the rest of the night. Surely she would be back in her own century by midnight...was this some kind of Cinderella affair?

_Don't think about time,_ she told herself desperately, willing herself to resolve. _Think about what's happening now. Don't panic._

She fought hard to keep the resolutions in her mind as she stepped into the lobby.

If she had been able to explain away the past abnormalities, able to dismiss them with desperate logic and forced calm, she now saw, with a sick feeling, that there was no way she could explain the lodging house away. No argument could possibly convince her that a building like this existed in New York City. _Her _New York City. The very room looked as though it came out of a movie set. The decor was dark, wooden and heavy, lit only by oil lamps that shone weakly from corners and desks. Although most of the furniture was destitute and ramshackle, it was the kind of furniture that she saw in antique shows and re-enactments of the turn of the century. The most magnificent grandfather clock stood in the corner, one that would probably fetch an astonishing sum one hundred years later. Her time. The future. Or was her time now the past? Her head was clouded with doubts and frightening fingers of certainty that seemed to clench at her thoughts and hold them still, freeze them.

Trying to keep herself fixed in reality, she focused only on Swifty, who was being shifted as gently as possible onto the narrow counter that surrounded what looked like an office. She allowed herself a moment of wonder, studying the tight, dense shelves that covered the wall, the papers stacked neatly in each one, the quaint looking oil lamp shining steadily nearby. There was an old, musty looking book lying on the desk, and much to her astonishment and dull fear, an inkpot and fountain pen. One that had to be _filled._

One of the shorter boys with dark curly hair and an unlit cigar clenched tightly in his mouth grabbed the book and tried to slide it under Swifty's head, like a pillow, while a taller one with a rather beaky nose appeared in the doorway, his hands full of ragged, sad looking bandages. And not the band-aids and tenser bandages that Lee was familiar with, but long linen strips that didn't seem to have any sort of clips or fastenings. Ones that had to be tied. She watched as he crossed the room and piled them near Swifty's head, clearly at a loss for what to do. That must be Skittery, she remembered Jack's orders.

She could hear voices and pounding from upstairs. There was an awful lot of yelling going on, an awful lot of demands. She couldn't make out the words through the floor, but she had the feeling she knew what it was all about.

Jack seemed to have forgotten Lee entirely as he moved forwards towards the injured boy. Lee stood in the center of the lobby, letting it's soft warmth slowly bring her skin back to life, letting the antique, dusty atmosphere sink into her bones and make her heart thud sadly in her chest. She realized that the underside of her toque was sticky and hot. Hardly thinking about what she was doing, she pulled it off and began to mindlessly fluff at her hair, smoothing it back from her face. The shift of responsibility was so abrupt, she felt out of place.

"Whoa! Whoa!" The shorter boy with the cigar was shouting in a raspy voice, as Skittery tried to shift Swifty's injured leg, making the boy writhe with pain. "Watch it, watch it, you tryin' to murder him?"

"Oh, so we're just gonna let 'im bleed all over the counter? I'm tryin' to put the bandages on!"

"You can't just put bandages on you need a shint!"

"A splint?" Jack corrected absently as he rooted around in a drawer beneath the desk.

"Yeah, yeah, a splint," the boy's tone barely altered. "To keep the damn thing straight!"

Jack reappeared with a dark bottle in his hands, a square one with a precise, gold label. He swished it around for a second, checking how much liquid was inside, and with a brief nod pulled the cork out with his fingers and walked towards Swifty, who's eyes were clenched tightly, face shining with sweat. He seemed to be mouthing words at the ceiling, but whether they were English or not, Lee couldn't tell. She clenched at her arms hard, barely realizing how much pain she was causing herself, watching the way his face was contorting with agony.

"C'mon, buddy," Jack was saying in a voice that was surprisingly soothing for a boy so large. "Open up. Got something here for ya that'll make you feel a lot better."

"I don't want the whiskey," Swifty said harshly through his clenched teeth. "Just let me go up to bed...I'll sleep it off..."

Jack and Skittery exchanged a quick look, but dropped it the moment their eyes met. Jack turned back to his friend, shaking his head.

"'Fraid not, pal. C'mon, just a li'l. It'll take the edge off, see?"

"I don't want the damn whiskey." Swifty repeated bluntly. "Just leave me alone!"

Lee felt herself moving forwards, despite her uncertainty, despite her nakedness. The way his teeth were gnashing against one another made her own mouth ache, as though she was the one chewing on the howls of pain that she couldn't let escape. Gently, she reached out and touched his arm, which was dangling down the side of the counter, as though lifeless. Jack glanced up at her once, eyes dark and guarded, watching the expression on her face. His lips remained pressed together.

The two boys alongside him glanced at her as well, taking in her appearance, before quickly looking back to the leg. Neither said anything, and there was an awkward silence in which they fumbled with the bandages, rolling and rerolling them around their hands. Lee studied the bloodstains seeping ceaselessly through the corduroy of his slacks, and glanced back at his face, which was paler than china.

"He needs a doctor," she said, her voice crumbling on her lips, barely audible. "He needs more than bandages and a splint. He needs stitches."

"What, you got fifty bucks?" Jack asked bluntly, as he touched the lips of the bottle to Swifty's mouth, trying to entice him to open. Lee felt her stomach twitch in irritation, but forced the feeling down. She couldn't afford to get petty now.

"He'll bleed to death if we don't do anything," she persisted, reaching out, meaning to touch Jack's hand. But before she could so much as move, he glanced up at her once more, his gray eyes burning through hers with a disdain that almost made her freeze.

"I _said,_ you got fifty bucks?" He asked. "Lissen, unless you can find us a doctor who's gonna be workin' for free, this kid ain't gettin' no stitches."

Lee felt her brows furrow as Swifty reluctantly parted his lips, and Jack tipped the bottle slightly, allowing some of the liquid to trickle into his mouth. Almost immediately, Swifty's body was wrenched by a violent choking as the burning liquid got into his lungs and seared it's way to his stomach.

"Race," Jack continued. "Check the alley, there's gotta be somethin' there we can use as a splint."

-0-

Swifty pushed the door open, smiling slightly as a warm, smoky smell drifted out from the inside of the lodging house, embracing his bare skin. Although the heat wasn't exactly a boasting point for the establishment, it was a vast improvement over the icy weather of the outdoors. He closed the door behind him.

It was Kloppman's night off, he demanded that he had at least one every month. Usually his cousin from Boston came in every so often to look out for the boys while he was away, but it was not the case that night. The cousin was sick. A cough, or something. Swifty unwound the scarf from his neck and went to go join the boys in the lobby.

It sounded as though Racetrack was nearing one of the ends of his infamous stories. The low rounds of laughter were certainly enough to prove that it was indeed Racetrack, he could have the whole house on it's ear with a few lines. Swifty entered the lobby, attracting little attention in his quiet, modest way. Racetrack was saying something about a whore on East 4th, or at least, that's what Swifty gathered. Most of Racetrack's stories ran the same lines, but the talent he had for adding small embellishments here and there and adding a different flair to every story made each one surprising and unique.

He moved towards the group and dropped down next to Jack, who was leaning back and smirking in his haughty way, trying not to show how amused he really was. Jack was guarded, that was for sure, never revealing his emotions until he had too. He turned as Swifty sat down, and smiled tightly, before patting him roughly on his right leg.

-0-

Jack took hold of Swifty's right leg and lifted it as gently off the counter as he could.

Swifty bit down hard against his lip, as Lee clenched his hand, trying to press comfort against him through the skin. She felt lost and close to tears, hanging onto this boys hand was doing as much for her as it was for him. As Racetrack slid a board beneath his leg and Jack laid it back down to rest crookedly upon the make-shift splint, he reciprocated her grip with a slight squeeze of his own fingers. Lee's heart warmed.

The sturdiest thing Racetrack was able to find was a roughly cut strip of wood, something that looked as though it would hardly be allowed into a hospital, let alone to be used as a splint for a boy's bleeding leg. But it was the best that he could do, he had explained. Lee stared at it with doubt in her gaze. It was crooked, rough to the touch and ill fitted, extending so it bit into the back of the boy's knee. Swifty had stopped murmuring under his breath since Jack had given him his third shot of whiskey, but she could see the discomfort wrinkled into the lines that covered his face each time he winced and bit at his lip. Feeling as though a heavy weight was pressed upon her shoulders, Lee pushed the sweaty hair back from his forehead, which was glowing in the dim light from the lantern, and worriedly touched his face.

"Easy does it, bud," Jack was saying, as he wrapped the bandages unevenly around both the leg and the splint. Lee could see it's jagged edges pressing up against the skin, and she had to suppress a shudder. "Easy does it…"

Swifty's face had smoothed slightly, as though he knew the worse of it was over. The hand that was still wrapped up tight in Lee's own began to squeeze back, and she was unsure of whether to laugh or cry. Wordlessly, she tightened her grip as gently as she could and continued to smooth the hair away from his face. What her responsibilities were to this boy, she did not know. But the one thing that she was positive of was that she could not leave him.

Jack had finished wrapping up the leg and to his credit, it looked fairly neat. The knots were tied tightly, so there would be no danger of them dangling loose, and he had taken his time to clean up the leg as best as he could before he had finished wrapping it up. Skittery had moved to the chair and was wiping at his forehead with the back of his hand, looking as though the wind had been taken straight out of him, and Racetrack was leaning against the counter, eyes downcast, still curiously chewing on his cigar, as though the gesture was so automatic he had forgotten about it.

"Is it bandaged up?" Swifty asked through clenched teeth, the first audible words he had spoken in a long while. "Is it all done up?"

"It's fine, Swifty," Jack said quietly. "Jus' fine."

"I can look now?" Swifty pressed.

"You ken look now, buddy," Jack told him. Swifty's eyes fluttered open, and Lee couldn't help but notice how they were shot red around the edges.

-0-

"Lee, I need that trunk moved during _this_ life time, please?" Her mother told her retreating back.

Lee reluctantly hesitated at the doorway of the kitchen, glass of juice held lightly in her hand. She should have realized that the moment she appeared downstairs, her mother would have another chore for her to do. She glanced down at the round face of her watch, measuring the amount of time she had left.

"Ursula and Felix are going to be here any minute, mom," she protested, wishing that she had asked them over earlier. Her mom wouldn't dream of asking her to do chores when her friends were over. Lee had lead a fairly solitary life throughout elementary school, and now that her social life was developing by leaps and bounds in high school, her mother was desperate to keep her friends around as long as possible. As though by performing any sort of slight misdeed might make them drop Lee like a hot potato. "We're going to meet Amadeus at Delancy and go to that art exhibit."

"Well they're not here _now_, are they?" Her mom argued, trying not to sound as irritated as she was. "It will only take a moment, honey, it's not very heavy."

Lee rolled her eyes and mumbled an agreement before making her way towards the stairs.

The trunk her mother had been referring to was an old, dusty looking thing that had been sitting outside her bedroom for what seemed like ages. It's original habitation was at the back of her mother's closet, but Mrs. Tamagi had wanted that space cleared out, so a new set of shelves could be built in. Lee had volunteered to take it into her room, thinking at the time that she could drape a lace shawl over it and set out her candles on it, or something of the like, but as soon as the trunk was outside her doorway, she lost inspiration, and kept telling herself that she would do it later.

Why they even kept the trunk, she was unsure of. There was no way of opening it. Although it was old, it's lock was still as sturdy as ever, thick, greasy metal and sturdy looking bolts, with no key to be found. Her mother said that it dated back to the turn of the century, and Lee could easily imagine it in some Victorian looking parlor, or a run down, old fashioned apartment. It had a very romantic air to it. They had considered calling in some sort of specialist to cut off the lock so they could see what was inside, but it wasn't a very pressing priority for either of them, so their curiosity remained stagnant, their will to do anything about the matter rather unmotivated. Lee gave it a once over, studying the tarnished metal edges and the hardened, soft smelling wood.

Reconsidering the lace shawl idea, she set her juice down on the floor, grabbed at the trunk's lower corners, and began to pull it into her bedroom.

Her mother had been exaggerating when she had said that it was not very heavy. Lee felt her back muscles straining to pull it into her doorway, could hear the grating rumble of it against the floorboards. What was it that her relatives had kept in this thing? Bricks? It was enough to make a sweat break out on her forehead, to make the palms of her hands slippery and unstable. Her curiosity was subtly aroused, wondering if it was the trunk that was so heavy, or it's contents, but she did not have long to ponder the issue. For as she was rounding the corner with it, a surprising thing happened.

The trunk tilted at an angle as she began to nudge it through her doorway, and she could feel the subtle shift of weight on the inside throwing it off balance, making it wobble precariously on it's edges. She winced, trying to right it, but it was too heavy for her, and flipped onto it's side, making the house shake with a grating crash, making her jump back to avoid her fingers getting caught underneath it. She could hear a pause in the activity in the lower level of the house, and a few concerned footsteps in the direction of the stairs.

"Lee?" her mother called. "Was that you?"

Lee wiped the sweat from her forehead. "Yeah. I'm alright," she added, and after a moment, her mother retreated to the kitchen. Lee sighed and wiped her dusty, sweaty palms on her jeans, staring down at the trunk in distaste. Now she would have to right it and finish the job. She squatted down, ready to take the thing back into her hands again, when she noticed something.

The lock had been shaken loose.

She thought that this was rather an odd thing to consider, since both she and her mother had obstinately pulled at the lock, hammering and yanking at it until they themselves were more in danger of breaking than the metal. How could it be possible that a single tumble could loosen it? Her curiosity flared to life once more, and she wondered if maybe she should call her mother up, so they could open it together and see the treasures that may be inside? She thought of them bending over the chest and rifling through photographs, papers, old mementos perhaps?

Strangely enough, it was not a desirable image.

She silently righted the trunk and dragged it to the foot of her bed as quickly and calmly as she could, wondering why she suddenly had this strange desire to be the first to look in it since who knows how long? She felt a strange affinity with it, a feeling that was difficult to shake off, and didn't want to share it's secrets with anyone just yet.

Panting slightly from the excitement and effort, she straightened it against her bed, dropped to a cross legged position before it, took the lid in both hands, and pushed it open.

It was not as easy as it sounded. It opened with a musty sounding creak, and what seemed like centuries of dust seemed to slowly explode before her eyes, as the insides of the trunk were revealed. A musty, ancient fragrance wafted from it's interior, a smell that for some reason, brought to mind the image of lace curtains, old pianos, and old locks of hair that someone had once snipped from a sweetheart. Shaking the images away, she propped the lid up against her bed post and looked inside.

At first, it seemed as though there was not much that was inside that she had not expected in the first place. Stacks and stacks of disorganized legal papers, passports, and letters in shambles, criss crossing over one another in a messy manner. Judging the depth of the trunk, she reckoned that if she were to reach in and touch the bottom, she would find herself elbow deep in paperwork.

Finding herself slightly disappointed, she reached in and began to shuffle through the letters.

She found, as she dug deeper into the box, there was a trifle more things inside that were more interesting than paperwork. There were a few newspaper clippings that were yellow and crumbling, including one that nearly fell apart into her damp hands. She realized, after a moment, that the majority of them were obituaries. Names she did not recognize, names of people that had died one hundred years ago. To her awe, she also found a newspaper, fully intact and wonderfully thick, with a large, three letter headline that struck a chill in her heart that the people at the dawn of the century must have felt. **WAR.**

Too excited to take anything and study it in detail, she began digging deeper, finding old trinkets that were tarnished and greasy to the touch, a few sepia photographs of Asian men and women, the kind that were taken in a parlor with camera's that smoked and flashed.

It was then that she found the book.

Whatever color it may have been at one point in it's life time, it was definitely colorless now. It had faded to an old, crumbling black, and the bits of paper that stuck out from it's edges were frayed and near ready to fall to pieces to the touch. But for some reason, it caught her eye. She did not know what was inside, but whatever it might be, it would be a lot more coherent than mounds of letters and paper work. She reached out, wanting to take it into her hands and feel it's thickness. Feel it's weight. But the moment her fingers brushed the cover, she felt a startling numbness in the tips, and she yanked her hand back, eyes widening, gasping at the feeling. It was as though she had been touched with a red hot wire, and had not felt the pain, only the tingling, dark after effect of it's heat on her skin. Had she just been shocked? How could she possibly have been shocked by a leather bound book?

There was a knock at the door downstairs. She jumped, startled, awoken from her brief spell of shuffling through the trunk's contents. She sat still, in a bit of a daze, as she heard her mother hurrying towards the front door. She had not even heard the buzz of the outer door bell. After a moment, she heard the trills of her mother's voice, and a shrill shout upstairs.

"Lee! Your friends are here!"

She gave the book one last glance, before grabbing her olive green coat and rainbow hat, which were sitting on the bed, and ran out of her room, shutting the door firmly behind her.

-0-

When Swifty was with Elspeth, she made him feel as though he had both legs again.

They walked together now through the mild spring sunshine in the only bit of green that was left to them, Central Park. It was both their favorite time of year, just after the cold rains and snow of winter, but before the oppressive heat of the summer sun. He could hear the clicks of her shoes against the walkway, calm and pleasant, and for once, did not think of the way he limped along, leaning heavily on his crutch, his dragging gait off beat and grotesque. Elspeth did not mind. And for that, he loved her.

"I checked the papers today." Swifty was saying to her. "Apparently Britain's drainin' itself trynna build these ships. Dunno why."

He knew that her real name, of course, was not Elspeth. The name brought to mind a beautiful, thin, all American blonde with bright blue eyes and a stiff, American accent. Brought to mind the elegance of a Victorian home and the beauty of the land of the free and the home of the brave. Elspeth was not American. She did not have the same toned skin as the girls who lived in the city did, and her hair was long, straight, and shining, black as night. Her eyes were tilted up at the corners, just like his own, and her bones were thin, thin milky white that looked as though they would break if he were to touch them. But they never broke. She was stronger than he had imagined.

They did not talk much of their history, and accordingly did not talk much of their future. They talked of the present. Swifty worked for the World now. He was no reporter, he had never had much of an affinity with words, especially words that had to burn off the page and capture a reader's interest. He wrote the obituaries, creating small paragraphs about people who were dead, thousands of corpses passing through his fingers each month. If Elspeth was free afterwards, for sometimes she was busy with extra work she took home from the factory, they would meet, walk together, or go to a diner to eat. And they would talk about what was happening in the world.

"Their building San Francisco again," Swifty told her. "Bit by bit."

"So many dead," she replied quietly.

"The government is pitchin' in a lotta dough," Swifty volunteered. Before, he had worried about the way he had spoken to her. It was no secret that he sounded like a common street rat. But Elspeth did not mind. She let him speak, just as she let him limp, just as she let him be the way he was all the time.

Swifty wanted to reach out and take her hand, but the crutch prevented him from doing so.

Together, they walked through the park, hearts beating tremulously inside their chests, the oaths of irrevocable love underneath their casual words.

-0-

Alriiiiiiight, here's where the timeline becomes…untimely. And…not really a line any more.

So basically, this is the time when the timeline disappears.

**Keza** - Yes! I HAVE REVEALED MY LITERARY IGNORANCE! I'm just at the tip of the iceberg when it comes to classics. I just finished the Great Gatsby. BY GOD I LOVE THAT BOOK! I know how you feel about the leg thing, but look! He's happy now! He and Elspeth are hitting it off okay! Huh? Huh? -Kez settles down- Don't get too comfy. Bua ha ha. HA HA HA!


End file.
